May 21st, 2012

LaFaunn Eileen Williams 's Story

Birth Year: 1919




Table of Contents





    LaFaunn Eileen Hage is my maiden name.

    A portion of my family heritage goes all the way back to the time of the Mayflower. I have 3 ancestors who come from the Mayflower. And I am a direct descendent of the Wing Family. I am so proud of the fact that my mother's maiden name is Wing. Now my grandfather was born in upper NY State. He came to Kansas with his brother and his teacher back when the government was doing homesteading and land grants. The teacher ran a country school in NY when my grandfather grew up. The three men came to Kansas and Grandfather homesteaded a ranch and raised cattle in the middle of central Kansas. My Grandmother was living up in Minnesota. I don't know how they met but she was a Benjamin.

    Now my fathers, father moved to Illinois and then they came to Kansas and started a cattle ranch. So the two grandfathers were cattlemen. The Hages had the Wings over for dinner and they brought their young daughter Opal so Russell who was their son began his future family or destiny with an introduction to my mother Opal.

    It is now my grandchildren that have discovered an interest in their heritage as they have grown and they told me they have looked up the Wing family. So today I will contribute my small piece of history for them.

    Chapter 1: Synapses

    My date of birth was August 6th 1919. I was born in Lucas, Kansas located just northeast of Russell, Kansas, to my father Russell and mother Opal. I had no brothers or sisters, which made me an only child.

    I had 3 children myself, Brenda in 1940, My 2nd daughter Lelannie who was born in 1947, and my son Russell was born in 1955

    I moved to Boulder, CO when I was 18 months old and it has been my home off and on since.

    Now I had known Wilford McGonough in high school. He was a couple of classes ahead of me. He was tall. Not as tall as Bob and Ted. Two other men I will mention. But he had curly hair and he was a good dancer.

    We were married on July 16th 1930, Wilford and I, the father of Brenda my first child. Not to many years later I moved to California without him. Now I was in California at that time because I had left Boulder. It was after I had Brenda that troubles began. Wilford became controlling and didn't want me to spend time with my folks. It just didn't go. He was a good father and loved his baby. He never physically abused me. But we both had tempers. I never really had much to fight with people about. I figure so long as people didn't cross me, we were Ok.

    The relationship I had with Wilford was not working and I left because there was no way to get out of my marriage at that time. We got a divorce 5 years after Brenda was born.

    Then there was my second Husband the love of my life. He contacted my mother who he knew well. When my mother found out Bobs circumstances my mother notified me. (Thanks MOM!) I was living up beyond Pasadena at the time.

    Chapter 2: My Second Husband

    I married Robert Eugene Williams and that is an interesting story. I knew "Bob" as we called him since I was a girl in high school. As I am talking about him I can still see his face as a young man. He is no longer with me. I loved him very much.

    He was in the navy at the time we got together for good. It was later when he was out in California in the navy that he indirectly contacted me because he knew my mother. My father was a little critical of him. I was his little girl you could only expect a bit of that.

    The war was going full blast at this time. I am referring to World War Two and Bob was an enlisted man. He was soon to be offered a commission and finally accepted it after a lot of thinking. Shortly after he had accepted his new commission as an officer he contacted my mother to tell her the news. He knew her well, and told her he would be stationed in Long Beach, CA while the new ship he was to be on was being built.

    Bob of course did not own a car back then but he told my mom how he could be reached by telephone and she passed that information on to me.

    I called him! I offered him congratulations and told him I was so happy that he was now a commissioned officer and lots of good luck.

    He said, "I can meet you some place and we can get together."

    So this was arranged and whenever he had some time to get away and he could find some transportation we would meet. It was not long before we decided that we missed the boat in the first place and that we cared about each other.

    With my new circumstances I left, it was Labor Day and I can't now remember dates. But I had heard you could get a divorce in just 6 weeks out in Las Vegas. I took my little girl and went there.

    I will tell you right now it was one of the biggest moves I had ever made and very scary, I was young. Oh yes, I had never thought I could make such a decision I was afraid of the unknown! But I took my little girl off I went. We were all alone and I didn't know anyone in Las Vegas. We took the bus and when we got there I got a room in a little hotel.

    It was the next day I looked in the yellow pages in the classified to find a lawyer. While I was doing this I had given Brenda some coloring books to occupy her time in the room. I found a lawyer his name was Bree. I don't remember his first name. I wanted to know how much a divorce was going to cost.

    He said "I can't really tell you what it's going to cost. But I will come by and get you so we can talk."

    I told him my situation and that I was in the hotel lobby. He said he would come down and pick me up. He was smart enough to know, that I was wondering, what am I getting myself into.

    He came and he was in his late 50's or early 60's He had gray hair. I thought he was a pretty nice little man. We talked a bit and he said he would take me down to his office to take care of some paperwork. But he never told me how much it was going to cost me.

    He said "We will just have to see." "It should take only 6 weeks if everything goes fine."

    Well it didn't go fine! Wilford wanted his daughter because I had deserted him. So I explained to Mister Bree that I had not deserted my daughter. I had just gotten away from him. (Wilford). I always had her with me. She and I were just fine.

    Mister Bree said "I will take you down to where I think I can get you a job. I know this lady who owns a motel. She has helped me out in cases like this before. They have small kitchens where you can cook and it is a place to live."

    So he kept his word and I had a place to live. Then I went down to a grocery store where I could get a job and did, working in the produce department. It was hard work.

    So all I had was a little girl who was five years old and she was a pretty good little walker. We walked everywhere back then. We walked a lot of places. At any rate my divorce did not take 6 weeks as we intended. It was started on Labor day in September, and we resolved the issue and I got my divorce the next year in March.

    All the while Bob was rapping up the new ship and getting it ready to sail to the forward area and Bob left. This happened to be for one of the first confrontations with the Japanese in combat. Bob was a classification officer on the ship. He could not tell me when or where he would be coming home and such things as dates.

    I was still in Vegas at this time. My mother came out from Boulder to see me and Brenda. Bob had purchased a car before he left. So we all went back to California and I picked up Bob's car to bring back to Vegas. So I can tell you those were really rough, rough times. I look back now and I don't know how I survived it?

    We took the car and I actually moved back to Boulder and I lived with my parents. I got a job at Karns Ready Wear a retail shop that is no longer in Boulder. It was there for a long timeas a women's clothing store. Bob could not tell me any dates or locations because all that information was classified. But he said he could send me a message about my Aunt Susie out in San Francisco. We picked out a hotel in advance where we could meet.

    It was the 29th of April 1945 that I received a telegram that indicated he thought I should go and see my aunt Susie in San Francisco. She is pretty ill.

    I had my little girl and I had pretty much made up my mind that he was the one. He had told me that he wanted no support money from Wilford and that he loved me and he would accept Brenda as his little girl.

    He was an absolutely a wonderful stepfather. Bob never showed any difference between his own children and her, though he never adopted her, simply because he did not wish to take her away from Wilford. I will give credit to Wilford. He did see Brenda once before I moved back to California when Bob's ship came back. I would go out whenever I heard that Bob was getting orders to come back to Long Beach. That's how we started! I lived in navy housing when we where out there.

    I was very happy there. I was just happy to have a home. We had a bit of furniture and we made it work. For example: We used apple crates for cupboards.† It was not a problem. When I think back on the little things we had that we appreciated so tremendously.

    Now Bob had this friend that he had known since he was a child in grade school. He was married and living at the time up in Burbank, CA. We got together not too often even though gas was cheap. It was still expensive at that time for us.

    Agnes was Bob's friend's wife. We got married about the same time. We became close friends. We were together on New Years Eve and we were talking and we had both decided that we wanted to have babies. We didn't see them again for a while. Time had past and I was so excited because I wanted to call her and tell her that I was pretty sure I was pregnant. As it turned out she was very nonchalant about it.

    She said, "Well so am I."

    We both had girls at the same time and they were always very close. Both Agnes and her husband are gone now.† I loved Agnes and her family and her daughter is also now dead. I have deep emotions when I speak of them.

    Chapter 3: My Parents &†I

    When I was a little girl my father loved me dearly. Russell never played with me like some of my friends fathers. He would never get down on the floor and play with me. But he just loved to have me with him. I would sit on his lap and all. It just so happens he treated me more like a buddy.

    I would be around him and help him. We would not be playing mind you, but working, or trying to accomplish something. Don't miss understand I was not working per say. Like if he was going to go fishing, I would help him dig worms. He would turn over the soil or ground and I would pull the worms out and put them in a tobacco can. I would follow him around and do things. While we worked together we were just the greatest buddies he never put me in any danger of course.

    He had started one of the first Movie houses way back when out in Kansas. It was when he sold the movie theater that my grandparents had a vacant house with no furniture here in Boulder. So they came out here with me and occupied that home for a while.

    I had a wonderful relationship with my mother Opal. We would get up and play and that sort of thing. It was my mother's parents that first moved to Boulder in 1920. It was summer when my grandparents came here on a camping trip with another couple. I have a picture of their camp.

    They came out here in their touring car and my grandfather just fell in love with Boulder. He thought Boulder was the living end. So he up and bought a house at 1103 6th Street in Boulder. He had sold a big ranch in Kansas and had the money at the time. It was just shortly after that as I had mentioned that my parents and I came to Colorado.

    When I was a little girl my father came out here with mom and he built his own house close by my grand parents. They were coming back here a little later after they had the time to sell off their ranch and holdings back in Kansas. So we lived in their house, as it was vacant until they returned and my dad built ours. He did it himself with the help of some local Mexicans who he used to help him with the hard labor. He built the basement with shovel and pick and at times dynamite to remove some of the bigger rocks. It is still one of the most delightful places in Boulder. I had three children and I could not split this house. So when Bob died I decided to sell the house and that is why I can afford to live at The Retreat now.

    My grandfather died just before I started school and before the house was finished up the hill. So my grandmother lived by herself and she had to have renters and boarders to make a living. She was particularly a big part of my growing up. She did not die until I got into Jr High School.

    Chapter 4: A Little Girl

    I had a doll as a young girl. I made a lot of the things that I played with. My father was an outdoor man. He liked to be outdoors. We would go to the mountains just about every weekend. I didn't know what a baby sitter was because Grandma was there when they finally came out here permanently.

    When I was about 7 my folks had some friends that built a house up at Eldora. It was just a little mountain place and we would go up there. I helped daddy and his friends and they were a couple that were like second parents to me. One of the first things Earl had said to me. Well...

    When the men were off fishing the woman would be together sitting on a blanket visiting and watching me. I don't remember what else we had to eat this day but I remember so vividly this can of black olives that they drained on the grass. I was very fond of black olives. Well they were passed around and we were all eating them and I had had my share. When they came around my way again I looked at my mother knowing that I had had my share.

    Earl said, "you don't have to look at your mother. You can have all the olives that are left."

    So Earl, my dad's friend and I were close buddies from then on. I had such a great time. No matter winter or summer so long as the weather was ok and as soon as they could remove the snow with a shovel we were up there to spend the weekends.

    I would go off and make a playhouse by scraping up the dirt to build the walls. I would find something that I could scrap with and they would be you know about 4 inches high and just a line of piled up dirt. I would make a living room and dinning room and all the rooms. I had the best times. I think today I had just as much fun as any of the kids with lots of toys. I had just as much as any of the kids I played with had.

    It was the games the kids played like "Drop the handkerchief" and "Fox and Goose". Here is how to play "Fox and Goose". We mostly did this at school and we used to play this in the snow. You make a circle with all your friends. There would be one person as the fox and one as the goose.† The fox would chase the goose around the circle and when the goose could find a hole to run into the circle the fox could not enter.† So the fox would tap someone on the shoulder and the new person would become the fox. The original fox became the goose and around they would go again. It was so much fun!

    There were two other families in my neighborhood and it was such fun we had as kids. There was a house caddy corner from my grandmother's home that had a big yard. The woman there had a niece that lost her mother and she came to live there with her aunt because she was unhappy with her stepmother. The girls name was Claire. She was a couple of years older than me and she lived in this big house with a big yard. In the summer time we would get to play out after dark.

    Now Claire though older than I it seems when it came to making trouble I was more the instigator. "I'm still a trouble maker!"

    Chapter 5: School

    I did not go to Kindergarten. There was none back then. Bob my husband was a few years older than I. He was 19 when I was 15 and he was one of those mean older boys.

    My grandmother had knit some mittens for me. They were attached to each other with a piece of yarn that went up across the back of my shoulders and down your arms as we used to do. So when you take off your mittens they would just be dangling at your wrists. Anyway it was very warm and I needed my hands to make snowballs.† Well this mean old boy named Bob Williams came up and ripped off my mitten and crossed the bridge over this irrigation ditch and threw my mitten in the ditch. I was in the first grade and I went home crying. That big old mean boy. Then I married him! He was the most wonderful father and husband in all the world.

    But in 1st grade I fell in love with this boy who lived up in Geneva Park. And of course I can still remember his name. It was Gordon Snow. He was the first love of my life even though I never had a date with him.

    We were such close friends that just before he died I got to see him. I'm crying right now as I think of his memory. He had a rough life but a good life. And when I say rough I mean he had tragedies in his life. He had a great wife who died and he had 6 children. His dad whose name was Charles Snow was a relatively famous and great photographer here in town. I still have one picture that Gordon gave me. He was a photographer in the war.

    We have wonderful memories of Geneva Park because there were not to many kids up there in that neighborhood. We got to play all the way up to Chitaqua Park.

    I went to Highlands School. It was just down 6th and over to 9th over on Arapahoe. It was condemned as a school some time ago. It is now an office building that was rehabilitated and restored. It is a historical site.

    I went to 6th grade where I had some good teachers some better than others. Jr High was 7th, 8th, and 9th.

    Then it was high school which I started in the 10th grade. I graduated the last year that it was called "Old Prep" at 17th and Arapahoe. It then became Boulder High School. The official name back then was the "State Preparatory School" designed to prepare kids for the university. There were about 225 graduating in my class back then.

    It was one of the first of its kind in the state of Colorado. I graduated in 1937. There were girls that I went to school with whose mothers had gone to Prep. It was an old school.

    They had traditions that I never hear of before. For example there were no freshman, sophomore junior or senior. The first year you were called "Toots", the second year you were called "Trips" and the last year "Quads". In the fall they would have a race running flags up Flagstaff Mountain. They would do it in relays. They called it a flag rush. They don't do that anymore. It did not cost money.† They had the Trip receptions and Proms.

    I went to the Trip Reception and I worn high heels and this black slinky dress. I went with a boy named Ted Shreaves and when he came to pick me up, of course he had his brother driving him. I didn't realize that I was about the same height in school as Ted and when I put on my heels I was taller than him. It was so embarrassing to dance with him. It was awful!

    But then at my 25th year class reunion I saw him again and he was the tallest, most good-looking man what a handsome guy. And of course, I had brought my husband with me!

    When I was in Geometry I had a boy who sit in front of me beside me and in back of me. I dated all of them! It was one of the three I started going steady with. I stayed with him for almost all the way through high school.

    Now I knew Bob Williams. He seemed kind of ah -He was a fast driver and had a car. There was this girl friend I was going to school with at the time. Gertie lived up at the top of the hill and before we started school. We became friends right away together. Her father died before she was born in the war. But in High School, we always sat next to each other.

    We were always catching up with each other and I asked her "What did you do last night." Because there was this boy she was going with.

    She said, "Oh I went out with Bob Williams!"

    And I said "Oh Gertie you didn't? He's the wildest guy in town."

    She now never fails to remind me that I married the wildest boy in town.

    Chapter 6: CU & Dr. Miles

    I had seen Wilford there at CU, in Boulder where I went to school for a bit after graduation. So we met and had a coke and he asked me if I would like to go with him to this fraternity dance. Of course going out with Wilford and going to this fraternity dance sounded so glamorous and all. He was this good-looking fellow and we fell in love.

    I wanted to tell you how come I started working for Dr. Miles in Boulder. He was an MD in town. I started working for him as a babysitter. Here is how it all began.

    I was driving the car one day and a bee flew in the car. I was doing my best to drive and shoo the bee away and out the window and I drove into a culvert and ruined the brand new tire on my folk's car. Now I was going to pay for it!

    So I walked down town and went into the employment office. God must have had this all planned because the only job that was available was with Dr. Miles. They had moved into Boulder and needed a babysitter. They had two little boys and I walked down town to the interview and got the job and was a babysitter when I started at CU. At this time I was very much in love with Wilford or at least I thought I was. I was also doing my classes in Home Economics because I wanted to become a Home Economics teacher. But that never happened.

    I had to leave CU because it was just to hard for my parents to come up with the tuition even back then. It was only one semester that I went there and I got Ok grades and all. It was during Christmas vacation after I had finished my first semester that Dr. Miles was taking me home after babysitting and he asked are you continuing back to school?

    I said, "No I am in love and I will not be returning to school I have decided I am in love and I am going to get married. So I continued, What's the point on going on with all this schooling if I am going to get married and be a mother and keep house?"

    He replied, "If you have made up your mind and you intent to drop out of school, though I hate to see you drop out, if this is what you intend to do I can offer you a job. I have time to teach you a lot of things. But I don't have a lot of money. I need someone who can take care of the phones when I do have a client."

    So I went to work for Dr. Miles. He taught me all these things that I had no other way of learning except to continue on in school. I became quite an expert a taking x-rays. He taught me lab tests and urinalysis. I could handle most of the things that I did. I just loved it! Then a new Dentist moved in next to our office in the First National Bank Building. He didn't have a receptionist. So when I was free and he was out to lunch I would cover his phones so I was working for the both of them. He also taught me a lot of good useful and interesting things. They eventually combined the reception room and I worked for them both for a while. But I was loyal to Dr. Miles because he was the first one who hired me. So another girl came on board and we became very close friends. So we had a close relationship and worked well together also.

    So then I decided I better get married. It was the only way I thought it was going to work out. That went along for a while then of course along came the baby. Dr. Miles delivered Brenda and he was such a good close friend to our family. I loved the kids and Mrs. Miles was so sweet. Everything was going so smoothly you could say monotonous.

    Chapter 7: Living Back East

    My favorite holiday I guess was Christmas. We did just about everything that was traditional regarding all the holidays. There was a time when I was away from home because Bob and I lived in Long Beach. I was a Mom.

    My folks would come to visit us out there. This was always a big happy event. It was wonderful that Bob got along with my family and welcomed my family. He would let me go home and such. He was such a good daddy and stepfather. He had never been married and never had children. It amazes me that I got so lucky!

    We had such a good life. Though there were times for instance where Bob had orders to move on and it became my burden to get everything moved and shipped to the new location. Then I would have to go back and clean up the house for the inspectors who checked it out for the navy. Boy were they strict! I was sitting there on the floor crying my eyes out as I was going through our papers trying to decide what needed to go and what I was going to get rid of.

    My girl friend came over and said, "why don't you get a job at the local dairy so you don't have to move?"

    I have felt sorry for myself plenty of times! Then I had to drive across this country, I don't know how many times. There was a time we were stationed in Norfolk, Virginia.† We also lived in Bloomfield, New Jersey just outside New York. There we had rented the first floor of a two-story house. The landlords who were natives lived upstairs.

    I remember they never liked to use the front door. Their idea was the front door was for special or state occasions. That didn't stop Bob or I!

    We let our kids play just like any other kids.

    Bob had his office located in lower Manhattan at Eastern Sea Frontier. There was a time when Brenda had an allergy, I suppose I should have worried more about it but I didn't.

    I would take her to down to the local train station and I used to let her ride the train to the shore then hop the ferry over into lower New York all by herself to get her allergy shot. The medical offices were in lower Manhattan and she would walk over to meet my husband at the office and come home with him when he was done. Nobody thought anything about it. Nobody paid any attention to that little girl. She was only about 11-12. No one bothered her and she did this every week.

    We lived in this situation for about 2 years. When this was up we moved to Bayonne, New Jersey which is just north of Staten Island, New York. We lived here in Navy Housing again. Right outside our living room window was the Statue of Liberty. It was perfectly framed in that window. What a view.

    I have seen the sites of New York including Empire State building and all. One of the things we did while we lived there was, we never missed one change of the movie at Radio City Music Hall. We saw them all!

    We would take Lelannie with us. She was in kindergarten in Bloomfield and then the first grade when we moved to Bayonne.

    Chapter 8: A Few Other Memories

    My kids are now grown. The two daughters live in Florida in the same complex. They will come to see me very soon. My son is living here.

    I can say a lot of people have had an influence on my life. In the navy you know you are going to meet people and that you are not going to be together for very long. You can make good friends very easy and fast. You have to.

    The girls and I before we had our son went to china. Bob was on a ship there but we were on land. Because Bob worked with top-secret information he knew that his family, we, were going to be evacuated because the communists were right outside the city limits. Lelannie was only a year old she had just had her first birthday. We were in a town called Sing Toew. But the people I met in China which was after a very short period of time became very dear friends for life.

    My husband and I have done so many things together it is hard to do more than scratch the surface. My husband worked up until the day he died. After he left the navy he got into the stationary business. We had a company called Arapahoe Stationary. The finance company shared the ownership. It was at 55th and Arapahoe. The timing was very poor. It was getting started at the time the big companies were taking over.

    I went to Old Town Arvada the other day and that brought back some memories. There was a stationary store there that was for sale before we got into the one on Arapahoe. I went into the store in Arvada here and it is now going out of business. The people who owned it had stuck with it for 50 years. This fellow was the grandson of the original owner that was in the store. But he knew Bob. All the people in the stationary business knew Bob. Again it is an emotional thing for me to remember those times.

    Chapter 9: The Depression

    During the depression my father lost his business. He lost everything with his business. He owned a tire shop. I could go on and on about my fathers ability to be an entrepreneur. It was located almost at the corner of Broadway and Arapahoe in Boulder. He could have walked to work but he drove I think. I walked to school! Anyway when he lost the business I don't know how he managed to keep the family going. We might have been poor but I didn't notice it. We did not loose our house we did not go to bread lines. But we managed somehow to keep going. My mom did not work at the time. In fact she did not start work until after I had Brenda.

    She worked at Remington Arms and made munitions for the war effort. She was very proud of that.

    I had cloths that my mother and grandmother made. Sometimes they were made out of some of my mother's cloths. I at no point ever felt I was different or less off than anyone else. I once asked my mother if I could take dancing lessons because my girl friend did.

    She said, "No, we just can't afford it" and that was all there was to it.

    I never felt deprived. I just knew that Evelyn got to take dancing lessons and I didn't. She also got a big old doll at Christmas and I didn't but that wasn't anything serious in my life.

    My father was a fisherman and a hunter. I remember when the times were tough he had a meat locker with freezers downtown. Daddy really knew how to take care of the meat. He grew up on a ranch where they butchered the animals for food. I remember going down with mother to take things out of the locker with coats and gloves to go in there to handle the frozen food. Now grandma lived down the hill by herself with no social security. She would have the things that mother would bring to her.

    Now we had a coal furnace. The coal bin was in the basement. Became the garage and later daddy made a real nice apartment down there. So that garage became a living room and the large door became large windows.

    Chapter 10: Trips I Have Done

    I have been many places beyond what I have mentioned so far. I have been to Disney World and Sea World.† I have taken cruises. I love to go on cruise ships, though not with my husband. I could never get him to go with me.

    He said "I've done all the cruising I need to do."

    He liked to travel in the United States in the automobile. He enjoyed every minute of the driving. I can't think of any state I have not been to in the lower 48. I have not been to Alaska. I have wanted to go there and both of my girls have been there. Russell has not been there.

    I have never gone on a military ship with my husband. I can say I like to fly. That never scared me.

    I am not traveling now. I have let my passport expire. It is now too difficult for me. That is not to say that I wouldn't like to. I would.

    I can say that if you asked me what was my favorite vacation. I could not answer that. We have taken family vacations to Yellow Stone and other places.

    Chapter 11: One Final Thought

    If you have read this to this point than there is just one final thought I wish to share with you.

    Please consider the people who follow and love you. Contribute your story for them. It/you are priceless!